Article
Secondary School Teachers' Attitudes toward AI: A CFA-SEM Approach
This study investigates the structural determinants of secondary school teachers' attitudes toward the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in educational settings. While AI offers transformative pedagogical potential, its adoption is heavily influenced by the evaluative attitudes teachers hold regarding its ethical implications, professional impact, and their own instructional autonomy. Grounded in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the concept of professional agency, a conceptual model was developed to examine the relationships between Transparency, Privacy, Ethical Principles, Job Impact, and Teacher Autonomy on Pedagogical Benefits and Usage Efficiency. Data were collected from secondary school teachers and analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Reliability and validity were established with all constructs achieving an Average Variance Extracted (AVE) > 0.50 and Composite Reliability (CR) > 0.70. Results indicate that Transparency and Objectivity is the strongest predictor of perceived Pedagogical Benefits (β = 0.641, p <0.001), while Teacher Autonomy significantly drives Usage Efficiency (β = 0.414, p =0.033). Furthermore, a high correlation (r =0.83) between Job Impact and Ethical Principles suggests that teachers’ ethical evaluations are deeply linked to professional security. Additionally, ANOVA and post hoc analyses revealed significant differences in AI attitude, with lower scores observed among teachers aged over 50, those with more than 15 years of experience, and teachers from language-based streams. The findings underscore that successful AI adoption is not merely a technical shift but a human-centered process. The study concludes that fostering professional agency and "explainable AI" frameworks is essential for creating a sustainable, "human-in-the-loop" educational environment.